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The Annual 2004: The 10 Best quotes from Private View

1. Gerry Moira

"It's a creative team's dream. You are being given a charity brief. This one's from the RSPCA. They want us all to use quieter fireworks (bear with me, it's a dream). Apparently thousands of our four-legged friends have to be sedated every year and it's time some creative awards were won on their behalf. You smile, your nostrils flare imperceptibly, it's gong time! The distinctive aroma of nervous planner has barely cleared from your office and already you're reaching for your trusty golf-bag of creative tricks. Instinctively, your hand hovers over the striking image of the King Charles Spaniel with a rocket up its arse."

2. Nick Hastings, executive creative director, Euro RSCG London

"Of the two spots in the new AOL 9.0 campaign, 'Vanessa' is more bearable than 'Steve'. The latter has decided the world is too slow for him. Hmm, way to go Steve, but you come across as the kind of twat for whom overdosing on amphetamines would be too gentle an ending. Vanessa simply must, must, must become an actress, but when Dad finds her a drama school it's, faint, in Glasgow, not Paris. Vanessa's kind of fun in a 'cute 'cos you're a kid but if you don't grow out of it I'll aim a flame thrower at your larynx' kind of way."

3. Gerry Moira

"Iceland serves up some kung fuey nonsense featuring mums as heroes. Mums as indolent sluts would, of course, be a more interesting start point and perhaps more faithful to the stores' offering."

4. Paul Shearer, founder, NItro

"Two spots for Harveys furniture store. The ads have taken the route of jealous neighbours trying to out-do each other. Not my cup of tea, but any ad that has the line 'he gave me a pearl necklace' deserves a bit of credit."

5. James Lowther, chairman, M&C Saatchi

"118 118. Right brain: 'It's wacky. It's wonderful. And it's definitely not Dave Bedford (according to my friend Perry Mason). Now it's Starsky & Hutch meets Jason King meets some weirdos in plastic boiler suits. Love it to death. And lefty, I do remember the number, OK?' Left brain: 'It took a while for me to get the point that you can get more than one number at a time, but once I did ... God, I feel free ... I want to run naked through the long steppe grass ... I must tell my therapist ... hang on, I've forgotten his number.'"

6. Ben Priest, creative director, Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R

"The new Halifax commercial ... Having had my coffee checked for traces of hallucinogenic drugs, my only conclusion is that this time, gentlemen, you have gone too far."

7. Jonathan Burley, creative director, HHCL/Red Cell

"After watching the new early-90s retro vignette adwank for C&G, I feel almost embarrassed that I signed away my financial life to them for 25 years. Fuck it. I should take my business somewhere more progressive and fashionable and pertinent. Somewhere with cooler ads. Such as the Halifax."

8. Jim Thornton, executive creative director, Leo Burnett

"Football analogies - where would the ad industry be without them? But, I wonder, do football managers use advertising analogies? Does Tony Pulis, in his team talk at Stoke, say: 'Right lads. We need goals. Beautiful, scruffy, I don't care. They can't all be Nikes and PlayStations, we've gotta score the Shreddies as well'?"

9. Leon Jaume, founding partner, WCRS

"I have never met the boss of Direct Line, but I suspect he shares the views of the chief exec of another 'bad' advertiser who recently told our chairman that it was odd but the agency people who were most sniffy about his ads always seemed to have so many fewer Bentleys and helicopters than he did."

10. Mark Wnek

"My advice to the creators (of Australian Tourist Commission's ad) is not to lose too much sleep over Ms Newland's playing to the adland in-crowd. I never have and it hasn't stopped my clients and me becoming rich and famous."

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